preoccupations and no message from him had ever come to her. Even if
his love was unchanged at Stockholm, it might not be so now. Hillyard
rang her up on the telephone the next morning and warm in his sympathy
asked her to lunch with him. But it was a pitiful little voice which
replied to him. Stella Croyle answered from her bed. She was not well.
She would stay in bed for a day and then go to a little cottage which
she owned in the country. She would see Hillyard again next year when he
returned from the East.

"Yes, that's her way," said Sir Charles Hardiman. He met Hillyard the
day before he sailed for Port Said and questioned him about Stella
Croyle discreetly. "She runs to earth when she's unhappy. We shall not
see her for a couple of months. No one will."




CHAPTER V

HILLYARD'S MESSENGER


Hillyard turned his back upon the pools of the Khor Galagu at the end of
April and wandered slowly down the River Dinder. From time to time his
shikari would lead his camels and camp-servants out on to an open
clearing on the high river bank and announce a name still marked upon
the maps. Once there had been a village here, before the Kalifa sent his
soldiers and herded the tribes into the towns for his better security.
Now there was no sign anywhere of habitation. The red boles of the
mimosa trees, purple-brown cracked earth, yellow stubble of burnt grass,